--- title: 'Week 5: Ads and Elections' author: Janet Hernandez date: '2022-10-10' hero: /images/hero-3.jpg excerpt: ~ This week, I look at how campaign ad spending has an effect on my existing models. I will specifically look at FEC election data and see if I can find a strong indicator of prediction for my model this week using ad data. ---
New local model that includes district level data on polling, incumbency, and local employment data is much more accurate. R-squared of 0.73 which is the highest so far. This is only when I use for DemMajorVotePct. When I do DemSeats(which my previous models used) as my outcome variable, I get a lower R-squared of 0.50 exactly.
Below is a plot of the actual outcomes from the 2018 election from which im pulling my predictive modeling data from.
Now I have to add the variable of ad spending on a local level. I’ve gone ahead and downloaded data from the FEC for 2018 election spending data. This isn’t exactly the ad spend per campaign but I am using it as a proxy by making the assumption that the more money a particular race / candidate has overall translates to how much it is spending in ads.